“Come here!” she cried imperiously.
Somehow she puzzled, indeed flustered, him. For one thing, her attire was bizarre. Usually dressed with unexceptionable taste, to-day she wore a boudoir wrap—a costly robe, but adjusted without care, and all untidy about neck and breast. Her hair was coiled loosely, and stray wisps hung out in slovenly fashion. Her face, deathly white, save for dull red patches on the cheeks, served as a fit setting for unnaturally brilliant eyes which protruded from their sockets in a manner quite startling, while the veins on her forehead stood out like whipcord.
Martin was utterly dismayed. He stood stock-still.
“Come!” she said again, glaring at him with a curious fixity. “I want you. Françoise is not here, and I wish you to run an errand.”
Save for a strange thickness in her speech, she had never before reminded him so strongly of Angèle. She had completely lost her customary air of repose. She spoke and acted like a peevish child.
Anyhow, she had summoned him, and he could now discharge his trust. In such conditions, Martin seldom lacked words.
“I asked for you at the door, ma’am,” he explained, drawing nearer, “but Miss Walker said you were ill. My mother sent me to give you this.”
He produced the little parcel of money and essayed to hand it to her. She surveyed it with lackluster eyes.
“What is it?” she said. “I do not understand. Here is plenty of money. I want you to go to the village, to the ‘Black Lion,’ and bring me a sovereign’s worth of brandy.”
She held out a coin. They stood thus, proffering each other gold.